ernment, that they had risked even these moderate reforms, which were
favored by many anti-Socialistic Radicals.

At the "Independents'" 1911 conference at Birmingham, again, a motion
was proposed by the radical element, Hall, MacLachlan, and others, which
demanded that this Party should cease voting perpetually for the
government merely because the government claimed that every question
required a vote of confidence, and that they should put their own issues
in the foreground, and vote on all others according to their merits.
This very consistent resolution, in complete accord with the position of
Socialist Parties the world over, was however voted down by the
"Independents," as it had been shortly previously at the conference of
the non-Socialist Labour Party of which they are a section. The
executive committee brought in an amendment in the contrary sense to
that of the radical resolution, and this amendment was ably supported by
MacDonald. Hardie and Barnes, however, persuaded the Congress to vote
down both resolution and amendment on the ground that the "Independents"
in Parliament _ought to support the Liberal and Radical government,
except in certain crises_--as illustrations of which Barnes mentioned
the Labourites' opposition to armaments and their demand for the right
to work. Keir Hardie also declared that he was not satisfied with the
conduct of the Labour Party in Parliament; his motion condemning the
government's action in the Welsh coal strike, for example, had secured
only seventeen of their forty votes. He claimed that the influence of
the Liberals over the party was due, not to their social reform program,
but to their passing of the trade-union law permitting picketing after
the elections of 1906, and that he feared them more than he did the
Conservatives. However, he thought that this Liberal influence was now
on the decline, and said that if the Liberals attempted to strengthen
the House of Lords, as suggested in the preamble to their resolution,
abolishing its veto power, the Labour Party would be ready to vote
against the government.

The Labourites did, as a matter of fact, vote against this preamble, and
the government was saved only because Balfour and the Conservatives lent
it their support. It still remains to be seen if the Labourites will
detach themselves from the Liberals on a really crucial question, one on
which they know the Conservatives will remain in the opposition--in
other words,